GOLDEN, Colo.—Police arrested a robbery suspect in a Denver-area grocery Thursday and searched for two suspected accomplices after evacuating the store and closing five schools to outsiders.
The hunt began after the armed robbery Thursday morning at a check-cashing business in Longmont, about 30 miles northeast of Golden, where the suspect was arrested.
Longmont police said a gunman took cash, threatened two employees and stole their purses. He fled in a car with another suspect at the wheel, police said.
An officer in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, spotted the car later with three people inside. When the officer approached the vehicle, it sped away, said Jacki Kelley, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County sheriff.
The officer briefly pursued the car but stopped because of police rules, Kelley said, but she did not know the specifics.
The car was later found abandoned in Golden, just west of Lakewood, prompting authorities to make automated calls warning residents and businesses in a one-mile radius.
At the request of Golden police, school district officials put five schools on “lockout” for about two hours, meaning only students and teachers were allowed to enter.
A King Soopers employee who heard the warning alerted police that at least one suspect was in the store, Kelley said. Officers surrounded the store, evacuated customers and employees and arrested a man.
The suspect wasn’t armed when he was arrested.
Kelley said officers found no sign of the other suspects in the store. The store was open again to shoppers by late afternoon.
Longmont police Cmdr. Tim Lewis said investigators were trying to determine if the suspect, whose name wasn’t released, was involved in the robbery. He said Longmont authorities know all three suspects and don’t believe the two still on the loose are dangerous based on their history. Officers from several Denver-area police departments were looking for the two men.
